The Altar and the Door by
Casting Crowns

Reviewed by Michael Ehret

"Casting
Crowns comes out of the gate on The Altar and the Door with another
of those 'smack-the-church-upside-the-head' songs they do so well."

Casting Crowns come
out of the gate on The Altar And The Door with another of those “smack-the-church-upside-the-head” songs
that they do so well. Previous discs have had similar songs, “If We
Are The Body,” from 2003s Casting Crowns and “Does Anybody Hear
Her” from Lifesong in 2005.

This time around,
Mark Hall and the gang smack the church with the disc’s
opening track, “What This World Needs.” And the lyrics are every
bit as sharp and convicting as Casting Crowns has ever written:

What
this world needs is not another sign-waving super saint that’s
better than you / Another ear-pleasing candy man afraid of the truth / Another
prophet in an Armani suit / What this world needs is a Savior who will rescue,
a Spirit who will lead, a Father who will love them in their time of need.

And then for the church, for Christians who profess to believe in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ:

What
this world needs is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance / Blending
in so well that
people can’t see the difference / And it’s the
difference that sets the world free

This is using the
scalpel of truth to cut out the cancer of complacency in the church. But
Hall is far from done. His earnest, prophetic voice continues
through five more amazing songs, back-to-back: “Every Man,” “Slow
Fade,” first single “East To West,” “The Word Is
Alive,” and the title track.

In this incredible
suite of songs, Casting Crowns points out that the world is full of normal,
everyday people who are listening, waiting for someone
to speak words of hope (“Every Man”). With the children’s
rhyme, “be careful little eyes what you see,” Hall addresses
the moral failure of fathers in this generation (“Slow Fade”).
But God’s forgiveness is an amazing gift, if only it is accepted (“East
To West”) because God’s word, as Hall writes in the album notes,
is “infallible, inerrant, inspired, and alive” (“The Word
Is Alive”).

Because of the brokenness
of this world and because of the sinful choices of man, God has provided
the way (“The Altar And The Door”).

Musically, this is
exactly what you’d expect from Casting Crowns – heartland
rock and roll with power ballads mixed in. Listeners don’t come to
Casting Crowns for platitudes about the beauty of the Christian life. Although
that’s true, too. Hall and company want to have an impact. They want
to move the Church to action. Specifically, to action that more closely fulfills
Jesus’ call on those who claim His name – to go into all of the
world and share the good news and minister to those who are hurting. That’s
all the group wants – and it’s everything.

Michael Ehret is a music maven who has written about music, secular and Christian,
as a reporter for The Indianapolis Star newspaper, several Internet sites, and
even CCM magazine. He is also the editor of the newsletter Afictionado, the e-zine
of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), and is testing the waters with
his first novel, Beyond December, while working on his second, Skipping
July.